Cleaning your Esse Stove

Cleaning your Esse stove is a made easy : like any cooker, if you keep the maintenance up, burn the right the wood - you will have many many years of cooking and lifestyle with your stove..

This cleaning page is here to help guide you through what you need to do to clean an Esse Cooker : for more please refer to your Esse manual

For a video on how to clean your Esse cooker- CLICK HERE to watch our Youtube Video

Step 1. Remove the hot plate

When you received your Esse Cooker : you would of received a set of Allen Keys an a Z shaped chrome handle thing.. called and Esse Hot Plate Lifter

Use the Allen key to remove the 2 x Allen Screws holding down your hot plate

Using the threaded end of your hot plate lifter, screw into the holes where the Allen keys come out

Once you have screwed in both the left hand and right hand Esse Lifters, lift your hot plate off

Step 2. Remove the Oven Cleaning Access

In the earlier model Esse cookers, there is an access plate on the front of the stove between the top and bottom oven : this has 2 x screws holding it into position

in the Latest Esse cookers, you will see an access plate in the bottom of your top oven : using the lifting tool that come with your stove, remove

Step 3. Remove the Flue Box Cover

Remove the flue box cover by lifting this off and set aside

Step 4. Cleaning around the right chamber oven

Using the Flue Brush that came with your Esse stove, from the top of your stove, you will see on the far right hand side ( looking on to of the oven on the right ) a very small access area

What you need to do is angle the flue brush into this access and push all the way to the bottom of this chamber

Notes:

It will be very hard to push down

there is nothing to break here - so you can give it some force

make sure the brush goes all the way down - Use a torch to look through the oven cleaning access - if you cant see the bottom of the brush - its not all the way down

And Scrub away

Hints

If your stove has sooted up.. use the handle of the brush to break up the soot in the oven chamber first : then use the brush to clean away

make sure you clean all the soot out : the cleaner this chamber is, the better your stove will perform

Esse Iron Heart Customers..

Accessing this area is done by removing the wore racks from your oven

and unscrewing the right hand oven rack holder...

you can access this oven chamber through this area

Step 5. Cleaning the rear oven chamber

Using the same method, use your Esse cleaning brush to access this chamber through the flue box

Notes

Push the brush on a right angle ( so the head of the brush is pointing towards the right of your stove)

make sure the brush goes all the way down this chamber, again, use a torch to look through the oven cleaning access to see if you can see this brush

there is nothing to break here - dont be afraid to give it a but of mussel to clean here

Step 6. Cleaning the oven access area

Cleaning all the soot you have just removed form the Right hand oven chamber and the rear oven chamber is very important

You can use a vacuum or scrap all this from the area using the Esse Oven Scraper

Hint

A 20mm Black plastic water hose taped to the end of your vacuum cleaner hose is a good way to access into the hard to get places

Hint...

The one major hint is : once you have cleaned the Right Hand Side Oven Chamber - and the Rear Oven Chamber - all this soot needs to be cleaned out

Through the Oven cleaning access trap door - you can access these chambers where all the soot will end up

You need to ensure this is vacuumed out and there is no soot in the openings..

Use a torch or mirror to inspect that the chambers are clean of any soot before finishing.

Step 7. Cleaning the top of your oven

Using brush or a vacuum, now clean the top of your esse oven

remove the Esse "After Burner" grill and clean by running under a tap

Step 8. Cleaning the Flue

We recommend you use a chimney sweep here - but if you are safe and comfortable on your roof, cleaning the flue is an easy process

Remove your cowl for the flue

Use ONLY a 6" or 150mm flue brush.. Do Not Use any wire, bottle brush, a bag..

Then scrub your flue clean

Replace the cowl

Remove the flue box access cover and vacuum out any soot

Hint....

What you don't want is all the chimney soot to fall down back into your clean stove

Cut a piece of cardboard 150mm x 200mm

Inset into the flue box and replace the flue box cover

Then clean your flue...

After you have cleaned the flue - remove the flue box cover and vacuum the soot off the cardboard

Don't forget to remove the cardboard before use

Step 9. Putting your stove back together

The Hot Plate

make sure the heaviest end if over the fire box

line up the screw holes : and replace the fixing screws

Oven Access

put the oven access back

F.A.Q

Q: How often should i do this

A: it will depend on the wood you use.. if you use good quality dry timber, twice a year...

Q: I did this and got this disgusting shiny and smelly soot

A: this is called creasode and can only be make when you burn wood that is either not seasoned or is wet

Q: My wood man tells me the wood is right -

A: the only way to tell is to use a wood moisture meter / split the wood and check the "Core" moisture

You do not want to burn any wood over 20% moisture...

Q: How long does this cleaning take

A: Shouldn't take more than 20min...

Q: Can any one do this?

A: Simple answer - yes... you do not have to pay anyone to do this - all wood stoves need cleaning and its made easy for the user to do this

Q: I did all this - and my stove still smokes

There is two answers here

1. did your stove smoke form Day 1.? if so you need to look at the installation, especially the flue height and your wood

2. If its only started to smoke : there is a good chance the oven chambers are still blocked : the hint is to use a torch and make sure the cleaning brush goes ALL THE WAY down this chamber so you can see the bottom of it